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How Anticipatory Omni-Channel Will Define The Retail Sector's Winners

Only an idiot would take a winter vacation to
Florida and forget to pack any shorts. Which is why, one bright sunny day in
Naples recently, this particular idiot found himself super-excited to see a
Winners at a strip mall near the side of the road.

I thought the store looked a little strange when
I walked up to the front door -- all the windows seemed to be papered over in
black -- but then I went in and instead of clothing racks, I saw row after row
of slot machines. This particular “Winners” was not my favourite discount
apparel chain, but a place where gamblers redeem their prizes (and apparently
go right back to gambling).

Almost immediately, I remembered that Winners is
owned by TJX but does not operate under that brand in the States. I shouldn’t
have been fooled because the “Winners” logo was different from the one I’m used
to seeing in stores, online and anywhere else.
But to me as a shopper, Winners is a “global” brand because I could
conceivably travel the globe. My experience with Winners has been so consistent
I just took it for granted -- until it wasn’t what I expected.

That moment of confused disconnect is similar to
what happens when omni-channel retailing goes awry. We’ve all had these
experiences. You can always find something worth buying in a certain store, for
example, but when you try shopping through their web site nothing ever seems to
be in stock. Or you download the app for a retailer known for its fast,
friendly service and find the app slow to load, or it makes your entire
smartphone freeze. Or it’s the brand that treated you like an individual person
when you asked for support via social media but which continues to send you
completely generic, irrelevant e-mails every week.

Being consistent across various touchpoints is
just one omni-channel challenge, of course. As Fierce Retail
recently reported, the latest research from Forrester suggests there
are four key areas that merchants need to master before they can ensure that
customer experience excellence will be truly pervasive. These include boosting
personalization, enhancing fulfillment (like buying online but picking up
in-store), harnessing data analytics and deploying digital technologies in
physical stores more effectively. This was the call to action:

The study
recommended that retailers focus on investing in innovation that drives
greater customer experiences, starting with prioritizing what will best serve
the brand's unique customers. Then, invest in technology that can scale and
generate ROI across the organization.

If I could add something to that, it would be
that retailers feel a sense of urgency -- not just to meet consumers wherever
they are, but to be proactive in thinking about where they will be.

Despite all the rapid changes technology has
brought to consumer behaviour back in the late 1990s, the move towards
e-commerce was by no means immediate or seamless among many retailers. It took
years of experts repeatedly warning about the sales they would miss out on --
and the customers they would ultimately lose -- before real progress was made.
Many are still worrying about digital-first rivals such as Amazon and Alibaba
rather than aggressively aiming to optimize their omni-channel strategy so they
can adapt to whatever the future holds.

Think about how voice-activated tools like Siri
and Alexa are already changing the way people discover and buy goods and
services. What will it be like -- what should
it be like -- ordering something from your favourite retailer while being
ferried around in a driverless car? Just because virtual reality can look a lot
like the real thing, should VR shoppers plan to stand in virtual lineups at the
cash register, or should we be imagining a completely different customer
journey?

Success in omni-channel used to mean, at a
minimum, that you showed up in all the appropriate channels. Now it’s a matter
of recognizing the need for great experiences no matter how customers choose to
engage. I’m calling the next era the “anticipatory omni-channel” -- where the
smartest retailers think ahead about how they’ll make the most of new and
emerging touchpoints. And you know what we’ll call the ones who make the right
bets? Winners.

Shane Schick tells stories that help people innovate, and to manage the change innovation brings. He is the Editor-in-Chief of B2B News Network, an Editor-At-Large withSwagger Magazine and a content marketing consultant.